Glass open-tubular capillary columns with chemically bonded methyl-phenyl siloxane stationary phases of tailor made polarity

Summary

The previously described method yielding apolar, chemically bonded methyl polysiloxane glass capillary columns was extended to the production of capillary systems of controlled polarity. The approach involved prior synthesis of a reactive methyl-phenyl polysiloxane polymer by copolymerisation of a mixture of dimethyl and diphenyl chlorosilanes. The polymer was then chemically bonded to the capillary glass surface to yield remarkably stable, high resolution analytical systems which were shown to be particularly well suited to the separation of biochemical mixtures at the subnanogram level. The principle of copolymerisation of differently substituted silanes confers to the method a considerable flexibility which could be used to devise polar capillary systems tailor made for a given analytical problem.